


A Runaway's Forever

by TheBashfulPoet



Series: Tumblr Prompts [1]
Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: M/M, Post-Canon, Tumblr Prompts, neil and andrew talk about feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-10
Updated: 2018-03-10
Packaged: 2019-03-29 13:09:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 837
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13927773
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheBashfulPoet/pseuds/TheBashfulPoet
Summary: A drabble based on the Tumblr prompt: “Tell me to go and I will, but if you ask me to stay I’ll never leave you again.”





	A Runaway's Forever

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Idnis](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Idnis/gifts).



           Neil never thought he would ever live to see life past 20. Yet here he is at 22 with a life of his own and a family at his back that will fight for him as hard as he had fought for them. It was surreal really. When he first ran with his mother at 10, life consisted of nothing more than bloodied hands scraping for every last breath of life and the feeling of eyes permanently digging into the space between his shoulder blades. He remembers waking up at the slightest noise or shift in his mother’s breathing and wondering if this would be the moment they were finally caught of if he even cared anymore.

           But now, now he wakes in a warm bed, light streaming in through the cracks of the window and wisps of soft puffs of breath ruffling his curls and tickling his cheeks. Now when he opened his eyes instead of seeing a crappy motel room or abandoned warehouse, Neil sees his family sleeping in various curled positions, safe and sound. No longer can he fit his life into a duffle bag and escape into the wind, shedding both name and memories. Gone are the days where he could disappear. Now, he’s become ingrained into the life around him, embedded himself in each of the Foxes’ memories too deep to be anything other than real. Neil Abram Josten was real.

           Yet, none of that matters as he stands here on the roof with the one person who made that true — who made  _him_  true. Now Andrew and Neil stare at each other in the dying light of the sun with a trail of smoke floating from the cigarette dangling in the corner of Andrew’s mouth.

            _What does forever mean to a runner?_

           He has meant it as a jest, another ploy to move them away from something too similar to an actual conversation about feelings. Feelings and words were always this thing left unsaid between the two of them, instead choosing to express themselves between actions and small fleeting touches.  But with Andrew’s impending graduation on the horizon, Neil didn’t think he could afford to keep these words unsaid any longer.

           “Yes or no?” Neil steps forward into Andrew’s space, steps slow enough for Andrew to avoid and hands raised so he can see them.

           “Yes.”

He takes the half step between them and closes the distance. Neil plucks the cigarette from his lips and tosses it down onto the gravel at their feet. His hands curl around Andrew’s cheeks, fingers tangling with the small tuffs of blonde hair that lays on his neck and thumbs caressing his cheekbones and underneath his eyes. Their eyes meet in a crash of hazel and blue, stealing what little breath Neil has left until he has to press his lips to Andrew’s for any chance left to breathe.

           The kiss isn’t like any of their other ones, not frenzied or hurried as if they are worried that the others might catch them or that if they linger too long that it would pull free the words both men were too afraid to say quite yet (no matter how may true they may be). No, this kiss is slow and tender, their breathes intermingling between their lips and a thousand words and actions pressed into one. When Neil finally draws away, the dizziness in his head threatening to buckle his knees and heart thundering in his chest, and rest their foreheads together.

           “Tell me to go and I will,” Neil whispers into the silence between them, eyes shut and fingers tensing again Andrew’s skin as if he’s waiting for him to say it. “But if you ask me to stay, I’ll never leave you again. That’s my forever Andrew.”

           He presses another light kiss to his lips. “ _You_  are my forever.”

           Andrew’s hands sneak up around his neck, fingers digging into the flesh hard enough that Neil thinks they might leave bruises. He’s not sure he minds if they do.

           “Neil,” Andrew says his name like a curse, but all Neil hears is the way his name rolls off his tongue like it was made to say it.

           “Neil.” He says again when Neil’s eyes remain closed, unable to face whatever his words have reaped.

           “Neil,” he says for the final time, voice filling with as much emotions as he’s capable of showing without compromising the promise he made so long ago to himself.

           When Neil opens his eyes, Andrew is already staring.

           “You can say no,” he reminds him because Andrew will always give him a way out.

           “I know.”

           “I hate you.”

           “No, you don’t.”

           “I will throw you off this god damn roof.”

           “Only if you promise to come with me when I fall.”

           Andrew answers him with a hasty press of their lips and fingers combing through his hair. Neil hears the word echoed in the movement, even if his mind becomes a haze of lips and teeth and Andrew.

            _Forever._


End file.
